A Memory of Flowers
by ubermentat
Summary: Ino ends up severely injured on an A-rank mission, and wakes up in the hospital. She learns she no longer has the use of her legs, but can re-learn how to use them through physical therapy. Unfortunately, Sakura is her physical therapist. Romance awakens.


Chapter 1

A/N: Welcome to my first ever fanfic! This fic describes the growth of a romantic relationship between the most obvious lesbian pairing in Naruto, Ino and Sakura. For those sensitive to cursing, I will try to avoid it. For those sensitive to detailed accounts of teenage girls having sex, you should have looked at the rating.

Disclaimer: From a solipsistic point of view, I do own Naruto. However, I am not a solipsist. And if you don't have any idea what solipsism is, look it up.

Ino rushed through the Leaf village forest with the rest of Team Asuma, eager to complete her first A-rank mission. After weeks spent training to be better than that billboard-brow Sakura, the Fifth Hokage had finally seen fit to give Team Asuma a really important mission. Ino couldn't wait to get back to the village and rub it in Sakura's face that she had been on more missions than that girl. As they reached a clearing, Asuma signaled a halt.

"I think that's far enough for now. Everyone sit down while I give you guys the full mission briefing."

Ino didn't want to stop, but she knew that it would be advantageous to know what she was rushing into. So, she sat down in the middle of the clearing with Choji and Shikamaru. Choji immediately got out a bag of chips and started stuffing his face.

"What is this mission, Asuma-sensei? We were told to be prepared to face enemy ninjas, but nothing else." Shikamaru was lying down on the ground as if he were asleep, but Ino knew he was probably paying more attention than even she was.

Asuma took a deep breath and launched right into the briefing. "About three days ago, the Hokage received a message from the Mist village. It detailed the appearances of four rogue Mist ninjas and explained that they were headed towards the Wind country, and that their path would take them dangerously close to our village."

Choji surprised everyone by asking, "But why didn't they just send their hunter ninjas? They would do a better job of tracking the rogue ninjas, and they would be way better informed about their abilities."

Asuma smiled slightly before answering. "Well, as to that, apparently the Mist village did send out its hunter ninjas, but they couldn't catch up in time. So now its up to us to apprehend these enemy ninja and bring them back to the Leaf village. Thanks to our scouts, we know they are somewhere beyond the next clearing." Asuma closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing with a really serious look on his face. "It is of the utmost importance that not one of these ninjas gets away, so don't any of you try to engage the enemy on sight. When you sight them, give a robin's call three times, and we'll all engage the enemy at the same time. You have your orders, so let's move out!"

Team Asuma leaped back into the trees and continued forward, making sure to keep a close watch on the ground below. After a few hundred yards, Asuma had them fan out and search, reminding them to wait for the rest of the group before attacking.

Ino had been scouting on her own for about half an hour when she heard the signal from off to her left, meaning Asuma had seen them first. Damn! She had wanted to spot the enemy first, so that she could brag to Sakura that she had seen the rogue ninjas first. Ino rushed over to where Asuma was and found Shikamaru. They waited together until Choji finally appeared, miraculously not eating and with an incredibly serious expression on his face. At least he was taking this seriously.

Ino looked down into the clearing to study the rogue ninjas and pick out her opponent. There were two really tall men, and a boy and girl of about average height. The shorter of the two tall guys was really pale with jet-black hair. The only other thing that was noticeable about him was they way he held himself aloof from the others. That marked him out as the leader, which meant that Asuma would be fighting him.

The other tall guy was really tan and was entirely bald. He was also covered in scars that crisscrossed his entire shirtless torso. He was making the most noise, and carried two massive stone hammers that looked pretty nasty. Shikamaru was studying him pretty closely, so she crossed this one off the list.

The boy with average height was average in other ways too. Actually, he was average in every way. Brown hair, plain clothes, and a blank expression on his face. He didn't talk much and wasn't carrying anything that looked dangerous beyond the standard ninja gear. Choji was watching this one, so Ino moved on to the last ninja.

This girl looked interesting. She was of average height, but her bright red hair made her stand out. She wasn't making as much noise as that tan guy was, but every time she said something it made him shout and wave his hands animatedly, so whatever she said was making him mad. She carried two daggers, both of them nearly the length of short-swords and covered with a weird crisscross pattern. She would definitely be fun to fight.

Asuma signaled the attack, and they all rushed down and engaged the ninjas they had marked out. As Ino had suspected, Asuma took the pale guy, Shikamaru took the tan guy, Choji took the mousy guy, leaving her with the redhead. As each pair faced off, Ino could see that they were well-matched. Both Asuma and his opponent were fast, but with different attack ranges. Shikamaru's opponent wasn't very smart, but he also wasn't giving Shikamaru much time to plan. Choji and the mousy guy didn't look well-matched at first, until you noticed that they both used very unique taijutsu forms. As for the redhead and herself, Ino thought they were very well-matched. They both seemed to have one thing they did very well at, but neither of them neglected the other ninja arts. That girl was a really good knife fighter!

"So, what are your names?" Asuma asked while dodging his opponent's roundhouse kicks.

The pale guy answered. "My name is Awaiyouma Gengetsu. The man with the hammers is named Ushi Hanmadoseki. The quiet kid is Nonezumi Kagehira. And the redhead is Kaenhebi Taifuugai. Why do you ask?"

Asuma got inside Awaiyouma's guard and cut him on the shoulder before dashing back and answering. "I just wanted to know the names of the people we'll be taking back to the Leaf village to await transport back to the Mist village."

"There's no way we're going back there! We're going to crush you!" Just as Ushi finished yelling, Shikamaru came out of nowhere and delivered a powerful drop-kick to his head.

"How dare you kick an opponent while he's talking! I WILL CRUSH YOU!" And with that, Ushi raised his hammers.

"We'd better back away now. You don't want to be caught up in his attacks." Awaiyouma briefly looked nervous before quickly resuming his flat stare.

"Shikamaru! Get out of there!" Asuma tried to go help his student, but Awaiyouma blocked his path.

"I wouldn't take your eyes off me while we're fighting." Awaiyouma flashed a string of hand-signs and slowly disappeared from view. Asuma heard his chuckling come from all around him. "Not that it matters right now."

Ino blocked yet another of Kaenhebi's knife thrusts and watched helplessly as Ushi brought his hammers together. There was a massive bang and Shikamaru was thrown back against a tree where he lay unconscious. Ino moved to rush over to him, but Kaenhebi blocked her way with a particularly vicious combo of parry, feint and lunge. Ino looked over at Shikamaru quickly and saw his shadow twitch a little.

As Ushi moved into range, Shikamaru jumped up and launched his Shadow Possession Technique. Ushi was immediately caught. Shikamaru shifted his arms a little before bringing his arms together near his head. Ushi had just enough time to look freaked out before he knocked himself out with his own hammers.

Ino danced around the clearing, avoiding getting too close to Asuma and Choji, and dodging or parrying Kaenhebi's knife thrusts. That girl was too damned fast! Ino couldn't even think of counterattacking without getting stabbed or slashed. And Ino still couldn't force her to reveal what those weird wires did. Suddenly, she heard Choji yell out in frustration and turned to look at him.

"Ow! What did you do to my arm!?" Nothing looked wrong with Choji's arm, but then Ino noticed it looked unnaturally still.

Then Ino looked over at Nonezumi and gasped. He was actually smiling. It wasn't a nice smile, but a kind of death's head grin that made him look demented. Ino also didn't like the chakra roiling around his hands. She tried rushing in, but Kaenhebi kept blocking her. Ino was forced to watch helplessly as Nonezumi repeatedly hit Choji with his chakra-covered hands. With each hit Choji lost the use of another part of his body. Nonezumi started giggling.

"Do you wanna know how my technique works? Well, I'll tell you anyway. After studying the Hyuuga family's taijutsu, I figured out how they disable their opponents." Nonezumi stopped to giggle before continuing. "After studying anatomy with the Mist village's hunter ninjas, I was able to mimic the Hyuuga technique. I'm now able to force my chakra into my opponent's body and disrupt their nerve signals."

Nonezumi continued giggling right up until Choji inflated himself, forcing Nonezumi's chakra out of his body. Choji couldn't help laughing a little as he said, "I can't believe you actually revealed the secret to your technique! If you had kept your mouth shut you might have beaten me."

Nonezumi blanched but held his ground. "Did you really think making yourself even fatter than you were before will help? You must be the absolute dumbest fatso ever!"

This time Ino, Shikamaru and Asuma blanched. Ino leaped back, dragging Kaenhebi behind her. Asuma charged towards the edge of the clearing, colliding with the air where Awaiyouma happened to be. Shikamaru struggled a bit, but managed to drag Ushi away from the center of the clearing. Nonezumi looked around quickly, and said, "Hey! Why did everyone leave?"

Asuma smiled while pinning Awaiyouma to the ground. "Choji always gone berserk whenever someone called fat, and that part of his temper hasn't improved over time. You'll be lucky if he remembers he isn't supposed to kill you."

"What are you --" Nonezumi cut off as he heard a revving sound. He turned around to see a gigantic human ball where Choji had been, spinning in place and quickly gaining speed. Nonezumi had just enough time to shout "No!" before being run over. Choji immediately returned to normal size and checked Nonezumi's pulse.

"He's still alive, but he'll be out for a long time." Choji promptly sat on him and started eating his potato chips.

Ino looked over at Asuma to see him neutralize Awaiyouma's genjutsu and quickly slash him several times on the arms. It happened so fast Awaiyouma had no way to block fast enough. He tried to perform another genjutsu, but Asuma slashed his hands. Asuma then tried to cut him on Awaiyouma's other shoulder, but before he could Awaiyouma fainted from blood loss. Ino thought it was probably the least exciting fight.

Ino finally turned her attention back to her own fight only to find Kaenhebi already launching both knives towards her. Everything slowed down for Ino as she dodged behind Kaenhebi and punched her in the small of her back. Kaenhebi promptly collapsed and lay spread-eagled on the ground.

Ino started crowing about her amazing abilities. She felt absolutely amazing. Her first A-rank mission had been easier than most of her B-rank missions. She couldn't wait to see Sakura's face when she told her about the mission.

"That billboard-brow will think twice before calling me Ino-pig!" Ino said, laughing. She turned away from where Kaenhebi was lying to look at her teammates. Planting her hands on her hips, she threw back her head and kept right on laughing.

Kaenhebi's eyes opened and she started channeling her chakra into the wires that were forged into her knives, causing them to glow and crackle with blue-tinged electricity. Ino was so wrapped up in her fantasies that she never noticed Kaenhebi stand up.

"Ino! Turn around!" Ino heard her teammates yell out, but it was too late. Kaenhebi plunged her knives into two separate points along Ino's spine, severing nerves and overloading her nervous system. The force of Kaenhebi's blow caused Ino to convulse and lifted her a foot clear into the air. Ino collapsed on top of Kaenhebi, and struggled to stay awake for a few more minutes. She stayed awake long enough to see her teammates knock out the redheaded kunoichi. Soon after, Ino slipped into unconsciousness.

Her last thought before dropping into a dreamless sleep was disappointment at being unable to prove that she was just as good as Sakura.

A/N: Well, aren't I ambitious? My first fanfiction, and not only is it multiple chapters, it also has multiple action sequences, and a lemon in the final chapter. I dropped a hint relatively early in this chapter so that Ino's sexuality isn't a huge surprise later on. PM me if you have a guess, or post it in your review. Also when you review this chapter, please focus on my action scenes, how in-character my characters were, and general comments on the prose itself. For the action scenes, also tell me if I should just abandon using them in any more of my fics, or if there's anything I can improve on. I liked how the names for my OCs turned out. I purposely made them rather bland, because they won't be showing up again. Let me know if you want to help me with naming in the future. Since I don't have anything else to ramble on about, please rate and review. Constructive criticism only!


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